The Dutch BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB) is heading for a spectacular victory in next Wednesday’s elections. Thanks to her charismatic leader Caroline van der Plas (55). And a risky strategy.
Those who cross the border with the Netherlands these days will see large panels popping up along the highway with slogans such as ‘Every day BBBeter’ and ‘The voice of and for the countryside’. North Brabant is one of the provinces where the BoerBurgerBeweging, BBB for short, can become the largest party next Wednesday in one fell swoop. According to the latest polls, she can even surpass Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s VVD in the Senate, the Dutch counterpart of the Senate.
That’s not bad for a party that has only been around for three years. The BBB arose from the large farmers’ protest in 2019, in which Dutch farmers turned en masse against the nitrogen plans of the Dutch government. The BBB presented itself as their mouthpiece, although it also linked that discourse to the struggle to preserve Dutch traditions. Think of the classic (white) farmer’s family and the cows in the meadow. In 2021 she won 1 percent of the vote in the parliamentary elections. Now this is moving towards 14 percent.
The woman behind this success is the flamboyant Caroline van der Plas, the 55-year-old co-founder, figurehead and so far the only member of parliament for the BBB. The politician seems to be gradually equaling the popularity of the late Steve Stevaert among our northern neighbours. She can’t be avoided from talk shows, no longer needs a surname and for many she is ‘just Caroline’, a sympathetic neighbor who, with her black curls, black leather jacket and speak true contrasts with the standard sausage in The Hague.
Beer and bitterballen
Van der Plas is not an ideological sharp-sharpener. She presents herself as a simple outsider who takes on the unworldly bobos from The Hague. The title of her recently published book is no coincidence Just common sense. This accessible image has also become the norm within the party. No champagne is served at party gatherings, but beer and bitterballen.
The foregoing suggests that Van der Plas rolled into politics out of nowhere, but nothing could be further from the truth. The former journalist and communication specialist is the daughter of a Dutch sports journalist and an Irish CDA politician, the Dutch-speaking sister party of cd&v. Van der Plas stood up for the same party in the municipal elections in 2018. Yet success only came later, when the strong communicator broke away from the CDA and founded the BBB together with a marketing agency.
It typifies the multiple faces of the BoerBurger Movement. Because while the party stands up for the farmers, you also hear them declare that a lot is in danger of being lost in the Netherlands. “She also tackles Zwarte Piet and migration in the same breath,” says André Krouwel, political scientist at VU University Amsterdam. “But she does it subtly and never ostentatiously. In that sense, it is still a bit different from the racist populism of Geert Wilders (PVV) or the conspiracy populism of Thierry Baudet (FvD).”
At first glance, there are nevertheless some similarities between the BBB and Baudet’s Forum for Democracy. In the previous provincial elections in 2019, the FvD broke through out of nowhere, now it is the BBB. Both aim for the voice of the angry citizen. Both are led by a charismatic leader. And both fall under the broad heading of right-wing populism.
Yet there is an essential difference. In this way, the BBB removes an important part of its votes from the center party CDA, the most important government partner of the VVD.
Death threats
Krouwel: “Van der Plas’ social-conservative story is more moderate than Baudet’s radical statements. And while the latter is a somewhat strange man who comes across as elitist, Van der Plas is a very ordinary woman who you encounter everywhere in the Netherlands. She’s very likeable too. You will rarely hear others say in a debate: ‘Oh, that’s a good argument, I’m going to change my vote.’ That is of course because she has only one interest: not bending on nitrogen. For the rest, she has free rein.”
The BBB now poses a real threat to Rutte. If he initially headed for a duel with the left-wing bloc of GroenLinks and PvdA, there is now talk of a three-way battle with the BBB involved. The more votes the new party can snatch away from the government parties, the less stable the coalition.
Still, observers warn that Van der Plas’ success could also turn against her. By adopting the right-wing populist discourse, the radical right-wing forces in the Netherlands are getting the wind in their sails. In the slipstream of the farmers’ protest, radicalized citizens are spreading all kinds of conspiracy theories. For them, the BBB is still too soft and part of ‘the system’.
“Now that the monster has turned against her, Van der Plas will realize with what fire she has played,” writes opinion maker Sander Schimmelpenninck in The Volkskrant. Van der Plas had to give up last weekend for the large farmers’ protest in The Hague, out of fear for her own safety. She’s been getting death threats for a while now.
